We chose Kyrgyzstan because we wanted to do a “Stan” country and it worked out  pretty well and it was very interesting. The Kyrgyz people have been isolated from the world since they pretty much first settled there until the Russians took over and was then part of the Soviet Union and renamed the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kirgiziya until it gained independence in 1992. 100 years ago, nobody in Europe or America probably knew of the Kyrgyz people.

Kyrgyzstan is pretty much covered in mountains. Kyrgyzstan is one of the former Soviet states not to be built up since the end of the USSR since it is the fifth poorest country in Asia. One of those former Soviet countries that is built up is Estonia. Most people live a nomadic life in yurts and less than 40% of the people live in cities. For more information go here:Kyrgyzstan

Interesting facts

• Kyrgyzstan is one of few countries to have a 3 unit domination of there money in this case it is the Som
• The word Kyrgyz actually means forty in there language
• The apple and pear trees seem to have originated somewhere in central Asia, near Kyrgyzstan
• Kyrgyzstan has the seventh deepest lake in the world, Issyk – kul at 2,408 feet deep but has the second largest volume of water for a lake after the Caspian Sea.

Food

Food in Kyrgyzstan is mainly made up of meat dishes that are not spicy, but some of their dishes have vegetables in them but they still have meat. They also eat some Chinese food such as dumplings which are known as Manty. They drink lots of horse milk and cow milk and have milk based dishes. We made Beshbarmak, Oromo, and Boorsak. Everything was really tasty.

Breakfast

Boorsok Recipe – We ate ours we cheese and honey depending on which taste you liked , sweet or savory. They are doughy but still good and they are shaped like diamonds.

Pickled cabbage – we pickled cabbage with vinegar, sugar,and salt.

Pears and apples

Dinner

Beshbarmak recipe – Beshbarmak is the national dish or Kyrgyzstan and is also eaten in the Xinjiang province of China and Kazakhstan. The word Beshbarmak in Kyrgyz means Five fingers so it is supposed to be eaten with your fingers. The onion sauce is very good and so are the homemade noodles.

Oromo recipe – We steamed ours in a rice cooker but you can follow the instructions. We also only used carrots and onions but you can use any filling that seems right to use.

Culture

For the culture of Kyrgyzstan we wrote poems. The Kyrgyz people wrote the world’s longest epic poem ever written and is about twenty times longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. It had 500,553 lines in the longest version.  The epic is about Manas, the founder of their country.  The poem is more than a thousand years old and the government celebrated the 1,000 anniversary of Manas in 1995. There is more that sixty different versions. The poem talks about uniting the forty tribes of Kyrgyzstan and how Manas worked to unite them so there was no more war. We wrote a few more lines to the poem since we looked at the site:Manas  Below is Andrew’ Epic. And here is a video I made: Isaac’s Manas

Flag

In the middle of the flag there is a sun with forty golden rays representing the forty tribes that make up Kyrgyzstan. The sun stands for peace. In the center of the sun, the two by three lines is the top of a yurt or the crown of it which is called a tunduk. The tunduk represents the universe and family, while the red background of the flag represents the bravery of the country.

Next is L is for Lesotho.

-By Isaac